Fiber, Various

A week since I taught my first dye class, and I'm finally getting around to showing off the pics of the day, and the newest member of Johanne's flock. We all went to see baby Achai before class started.

It's cute to see how all the females in the pen are kind of protective of him, and they would all move in front of Achai to keep us from seeing him, in case we were dangerous. 'He has a lot of aunts', Johanne said.

Thanks to Jo and Chantal's organization, we were ready to start promptly on time, with neat booklets of information and skeins of yarn for everyone. And all the students had a great time, getting into chopping plants and straining dye baths, ending up with a lovely row of samples to go home with.

You know it's a keen class when one of the comments from a sort of survey and discussion after was "You should have dye supplies for us to purchase so we can go home and do some more!"

This afternoon there was a bit of fiber fun of a different sort. Fibrefest is on in Almonte this weekend, and I snagged a ride with my mother and a friend. What I really wanted to see wasn't even as much the vendors as the exhibits at the museum (the MVTM, textile museum). I will say right now, definitely worth the trip. Go soon, before they're finished.

One exhibit was by a Peruvian tapestry artist, and while I'm not usually big on modern work, the colours and technique were incredible, as if the tapestries were painted.

(detail of the tapestry above)

The other exhibit I really wanted to see was a display of Coptic weaving, dating from the 4th-10th centuries. And they were amazing. Most of the pictures I had seen of Coptic weaving previously was monochrome, like the first picture, so to see a few colored pieces was exciting. This particular colored piece says it was likely a piece off a curtain. Think of it, these fibers were all handspun (spindle-spun, since spinning wheels were still hundreds of years in the future), natural-dyed, and handwoven, and they've survived for 1500 years since they decorated someone's clothes or home...

Meeting of (Creative) Minds

After the frost scare the other week, the weather has returned to bright, warm, and summery. Which made it a great day last Sunday to get out and take in a bit of the West End Studio Tour going on last weekend.

Meredith was the one who told me about it. She's been a friend of the family for eons - her son is the same age as my brother - and she not only has a lovely beading store , she has the same cooking/gardening/creative itch Mom and I have, and has been doing some fiber art in recent years. Turns out a friend of hers, Wendy , who's also a fiber artist, was taking part in the studio tour, and since Wendy has been getting into natural dyeing, and I do some natural dyeing...well, what a perfect excuse to get together, have lunch, catch up, meet Wendy (and her husband, who does metalwork), take in a few other studios, and generally make an afternoon of it! So we did.

We saw the studio of a wood-block printer, took in the works of a doll-maker, a painter, and a jewelry maker. Meredith also got to see the works of a few other artists who were in the same space as Wendy and her husband, which I didn't, because we were discussing dyes. Turns out what she and I have done is almost completely complementary - I've been doing mostly immersion dyeing on wool and a bit of cotton, whereas she has been doing eco-prints on silk and linen, and getting some stunning results. She has some photos on her blog , but they don't do the colors justice. I've been a little dubious about the eco-printing, but now I'm inspired.

We were tearing ourselves away, and I was thinking how Deb P would have enjoyed it, being as she's a printmaker artist and is part of our fleece spa spinning and dyeing group, and the one who ordered and researched the Japanese indigo we tried this year...when lo and behold, she and her husband came in. So hopefully she had as good a time talking with Wendy as I did. Meredith and I headed off after the introductions to make our other stops.

It was a lovely full afternoon, enough that although I could have caught part of my usual Sunday afternoon knitting group, I was happy enough to go home instead, have a cuppa, and let impressions percolate.